The present invention relates to a setting method for installing plug and play device, especially for a plug and play device with a non-WIN95/97198 self-driver. During installation, by adopting the method and procedures of the present invention, said device can operate normally and has the properties of common adaptability, wide application area and simple operation without restriction by the version of computer system.
In the present computer system, in regard to a plug and play device with a non-WIN95/97/98 (hereafter abbreviated as WIN95) self-driver, during the installation of WIN95 system, the system will set the non-WIN95 self-driver as an unknown device. After completing the installation of the system, said plug and play device with a non-WIN95 self-driver will not be operated normally. In addition, while some plug and play device being installed under the WIN95 system, the system will prompt to insert the driver magnetic disk for driving said device. If xe2x80x9cUninstallxe2x80x9d is selected, the system will not prompt the same again and then merely set said plug and play device as an unknown device. If the WIN95 system has a driver compatible to said device, the installation of said device will be completed automatically after deleting the unknown device from the control desk of the WIN95 system. If there isn""t a driver compatible to said device, then said plug and play device cannot be operated through the interface provided by the WIN95 system.
According to the solutions provided by general hardware manufacturers, when installing the WIN95 system, the hardware of said plug and play device with a non-WIN95 self-driver will be pulled out from the computer first. After completing the installation of the WIN95 system, the hardware of said device can then be installed. However, this method is obviously extremely inconvenient and also not safe for non-professional people to pull out said plug and play device from the computer.
Referring to FIG. 4, when the operating system WIN95 being activated the system will automatically search for the plug and play devices installed and compare the ID of each device being searched with the ID stored in the key xe2x80x9cEnumxe2x80x9d of the index key xe2x80x9cHkey-Local-Machinexe2x80x9d in the Registry 60 of the WIN 95 system. If the ID being searched is not found in the key xe2x80x9cEnumxe2x80x9d, then it will be recognized as a new device 40. Then the WIN95 system will prompt to insert the driver 41 of said new device 40 and copy the driver 41 to a corresponding directory 50 and add the device ID 61 and class 62 thereof into the Registry 60 of the WIN 95 system. At the same time, it will establish the corresponding relationship between said new device 40 and said device Class 62. Otherwise, the operating system will recognize that the driver of said new device 40 has already been installed.
The reason why the above mentioned plug and play device cannot be operated normally is that the new device 40 being found by the WIN 95 system at the first time cannot be installed accurately, which will cause the operating system to recognize that the previous installation is correct. Therefore, the device 40 will not work normally and also cannot be modified in the future, even though an attempt is made to adopt the installation of a driver xe2x80x9cDDKxe2x80x9d provided by Microsoft to copy said driver to Windows system directory 50 and add the device Class 62 into the data registry 60, or adopt the installation driver of add/remove hardware in the control panel as well as adopting the deletion of unknown device in the System Manager to modify the unknown device, the device 40 still cannot be operated normally.
In view of the various defects found in the above mentioned prior art, the inventor, after spending hard effort for a long time in research and testing, has finally developed and designed the present invention of the setting method in installing plug and play device.
The object of the present invention is to provide a setting method for installing plug and play device. This method will directly copy the driving and set-up (INF) files to the corresponding directory and delete the device ID and all the related device class of the original hardware device from the data registry of the system. Then when restarting the computer, the Windows system will display that the new device has been found and will automatically establish the correct connecting relationship between the new device and the previous installed driver via the new device ID and Class. Instead of using the traditional method to detect the originally installed driver, the present invention uses the new driver to replace the original driver and modify the corresponding relationship of the new device ID and Class in the data registry of the system and the set-up file (INF). Since Windows system does not provide the software of xe2x80x9cmodification of Windows set-up file (INF)xe2x80x9d, the installation of a new device with a non-Win95 self-driver will be very complex in operation. The present invention provides a simple operating procedure and has the properties of common adaptability, wide application area and simple operation, and will not be restricted by the version of computer system. And, at the same time, the present invention can almost be applied to all kinds of plug and play devices.